


Tougher

by lavellanpls



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Ficlet Collection, Gen, Other, Vignette
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-28
Updated: 2016-10-07
Packaged: 2018-08-11 11:28:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7889890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lavellanpls/pseuds/lavellanpls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of vignettes that answer the same question.</p>
<p> <i>“Who’s tougher than us?”</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Haven.

They’d failed.

Haven was buried under rubble. Their forces were scattered; their people lost. Everything was…lost.

Those who did survive were battered. The Herald returned, but not in a blaze of glory. There was no heroic entrance. No grand, inspiring resurrection. Lavellan limped through the snow and collapsed half-dead, and Cullen had to carry what was left of her to camp.

No one else fared much better.

Everyone gathered ‘round and sang a little song, which was all well and good, except it didn’t bring back the people they’d lost. It didn’t rebuild Haven. It didn’t make anyone any less dead.

So many dead. So many bodies buried beneath a mountain of ruin.

Solas said he knew a place they could go—a fortress, or sanctuary, or something—but for now there was nothing. Just snow and cold and stupid, useless Chantry songs that didn’t make anything any less dead.

Lavellan called her companions together around a dying fire while night raged cold and black around them. The flickering glow only made her face seem gaunter. Haunted. She stared hard at the fire. Or perhaps somewhere beyond it.

So many, many dead.

“Who’s tougher than us?” she asked.

No one answered. No one felt like talking, anymore.

“Who’s tougher than us?” she asked again, and this time Dorian made a sound like a snicker. A low, defeated noise.

“I imagine the Magister commanding the archdemon might be.”

But that wasn’t the answer she wanted.

“Who closed the breach?” she demanded. “Who traveled through time and back again?”

But there were so many lost; so many gone. Still so many dead.

“Who defied the Chantry? Defied an _army?_ Who faced a would-be god and brought down a mountain?” She didn’t wait for them to speak. She answered herself. “ _We did._ So who is tougher than us?” Her fists clenched tight at her side; her shoulders tossed back in a rigid line. She looked so small and broken but the tight line of her jaw never softened. “ _No one is_.”

A couple of them laughed. A couple scoffed. Most said nothing at all.

“Who’s better than us?” she asked, and this time when she answered it cut through the howling wind like a war horn. “ _No one is_.”

Vivienne gave a cold _tsk_. An involuntary sound. “Are you confident with that assessment, Herald?”

But Lavellan didn’t answer that. Didn’t, it seemed, hear her at all. “And who do we bow to?”

They suspected what her answer would be, but she spit it through clenched teeth nonetheless:

“ _No one_.”

Sera swiped at red-rimmed eyes; tried to hide a sniffle behind folded knees. “Frigging _right,_ no one.”

“Who do we bow to?” Lavellan demanded again, louder, fiercer. “I said _who do we bow to?_ ”

For a moment no one spoke. Then Blackwall cleared his throat, a deafening sound in the tense silence, and quietly answered, “No one.”

“So what do we do?” She unsheathed the battered sword still strapped to her side and stabbed it into the snow. She was small and broken but she still raged; still stood and did not waver. “ _We fight_. Now tell me—after everything we’ve done, after everything we’ve _survived_ — _what do we do?_ ”

This time everyone answered. Together. A furious, battered chorus that felt better than a Chantry song.

“We. _Fight_.”


	2. Sera.

No. No, no, no no no nono

They couldn’t be in the Fade. That wasn’t supposed to happen. _This wasn’t supposed to happen_. Sera remembered terror; remembered screams and blood and crumbling stone, remembered the ground dropping out from under her; remembered _screaming._ She wasn’t sure she ever stopped screaming.

Everything was wrong and not real and everywhere she looked there was _nothing;_ little spots of nothing.

She had never been more afraid.

She yelled, swore, fought a scream, and up ahead Lavellan unsheathed her axe and called back, “Who’s tougher than us?”

Sera’s heart raced, an awful too-fast rhythm that pounded in her ears. “How are we supposed to fight that? How are we supposed to get out?”

There was nothing, nothing, nothing.

Lavellan stilled her with a shout. “Sera,” she demanded, “ _who’s tougher than us?_ ”

With shaking hands she notched an arrow, took a breath, and screamed into the void.

“ _NO ONE_.”

The demons kept coming. Little nothings. Empty little nothings, like bottomless holes.

“ _Who’s better than us?_ ”

She loosed an arrow straight into the endless blackness and watched it disappear.

“ _NO ONE_.”

The ground twisted; gave way to a flat glass sea of awful, black nothing, while a terrible voice echoed from somewhere above, behind, everywhere at once. The demon. The nightmare. The nothing.

_“Sera, Sera, Sera,”_ it taunted, _“if you shoot an arrow at me, I’ll know where you are.”_

But she wasn’t listening to that. Wasn’t listening to any stupid demon bullshit.

Instead she heard Lilith, voice a full, booming cry: “ _Who do we bow to?_ ”

She ducked to dodge a burst of fire, leapt out of the path of a laughing pride demon and its hoard of little _nothings._ Ugly monstrous _nothings_. She let fly an arrow straight into the center of a despair demon’s ugly, gaping face.

“ _NO ONE_.”

They made it to the end, to the thing that taunted them, to the towering horror with too many legs and too many eyes and too much endless nothing.

“ _Now tell me what we do!_ ”

She felt herself crying and readied her bow.

“ _WE FUCKING FIGHT_.”

 


	3. Dorian.

“I can’t forgive him,” he said, and it sounded like an argument.

He couldn’t. He _wouldn’t._

He couldn’t, couldn’t, couldn’t, but-

But…

What if he should? What if he’d been _wrong?_ Maybe he owed his father forgiveness. Maybe he was just being stubborn. _Prideful._ Maybe he could have just been the person his family needed him to be, could compromise, _change…_

Maybe this was his own damned fault.

“You don’t owe him anything.” Lavellan said it as if delivering a report. A plain statement of facts. “You know that, right?”

And yes, but-

But…

Dorian was not a man to cry. Of course he wasn’t. He was Dorian Pavus, of House Pavus of Qarinus, in-

Well. He…supposed he couldn’t say that anymore, could he?

“He’s not entitled to you,” she said. “No one is _entitled_ to you. Any of you—not your time, not your understanding, and not your forgiveness. That is _yours_ , and you don’t owe it to anyone.”

Dorian did not cry. He did not _break down_. He was better than this, _stronger_ —he was not the kind of man to…to…

“Of course,” he agreed. “I know.” But he didn’t. Suddenly Dorian didn’t feel like he knew very much at all.

Maybe Lavellan could see that. Or maybe she just heard it—a weak and traitorous uncertainty that colored his words with guilt. _Shame._ Maybe he was being selfish; maybe if he’d just _listened,_ then…

“You don’t owe him,” she insisted. “ _You are better than him_.”

Yes, but he loved him. In his way. And if that was true then what if-

What if…

“You can be fine.” She said it with such hope, such bright-eyed certainty—as if she had any real way of knowing that. “You can be okay, and you can do it without him. You can do anything. I know that.”

He was not a man to cry. Or…maybe he wasn’t sure what kind of man he was. He held his jaw firm, lips drawn tight. He wouldn’t break over this, he couldn’t-

When he went to speak his voice slipped out too high. _“How-”_ It took a moment to rein back his breathing. He prayed she didn’t notice. “How can you know that?”

She looked so confused. “Dorian.” She anchored a hand on his shoulder as if afraid he would drift without it. “Because who is tougher than you?”

He bit into his lip when he couldn’t trust it not to waver. “No, but…”

“Who is better than you?”

He couldn’t, he couldn’t, he couldn’t…

“Dorian?”

“No one,” he said, and his voice finally broke.

“You’re Dorian Pavus, _of the Inquisition_ —and who do we bow to?”

He sucked back a breath that felt too shallow. He wasn’t sure when he’d started crying. He hadn’t even noticed. “No one.”

Her fingers tightened around his shoulder, a firm, sturdy anchor. “So what are you going to do?”

Not forgive. No one could make him forgive. That was his, only _his_ , and he belonged only to _himself,_ mind and body and soul _._ No one would take that from him. No one could ever again take that from him.

“What do we do?”

He laughed—a quick, wavering sound. He breathed. Once. Twice. “Well,” he said. “I suppose we fight then, don’t we?”

 


	4. Iron Bull.

Tal-Vashoth. Tal-Va- _fucking_ -Shoth.

Iron Bull watched the smoke rise black from what used to be the dreadnought. Their ship. His people’s ship.

His people, who were not his anymore. His people dead at his own hands.

“Come on,” he said, and it sounded like someone else. Something else. _A Tal-Vashoth_. “Let’s get back to my boys.”

_All these years, Hissrad, and you throw away all that you are. For what? For this? For them?_

Lavellan stopped him in place with a gauntleted hand laid flat to his chest. “Hey. I’m proud of you.”

_All these years…for what?_

“Yeah,” he said, but the word fell flat. “Thanks.”

“They knew you wouldn’t leave them,” she pressed. “They knew you could have, but they went out there believing you wouldn’t. Because _they’re_ _your men._ Your boys. Your people. And you would never let them down. Orders or not. _Qun_ or not—you made a choice, and you chose your people.” She looked up at him with a defiant sort of pride, a fierce, victorious stare like a general after a winning battle. “Because who’s tougher than us?”

“Not now, boss. Just…not right now.”

Traitor. Deserter. Betrayer.

Tal-Va- _fucking_ -Shoth.

He went to pass her but she didn’t move. Didn’t back down. She held him back with that same anchored hand. “Bull,” she demanded, “who is tougher than us?”

He relented with a sigh, gave an obligatory _“No one,”_ but the flatness of his voice only spurred her on.

She shoved him. _“Who is better than us?”_

Fuck, who was he supposed to be better than? The people he’d betrayed? The cause he’d sworn his loyalty to? Was he supposed to be any fucking better than the bandits and murderers and _savages_ he was meant to protect from?

_The other Tal-Vashoth._

“Who is better than us?” she demanded again, and this time her voice carried like a war cry. _“Who the fuck is better than us?”_

“No one,” he said. No way that was true anymore, but he didn’t know what else to say. Didn’t know a lot of things, it seemed like.

“And who do we bow to?”

Yeah, he…didn’t really know that answer anymore, either.

Her face was a storm of victory and rage; eyes clear, smile sharp. “Iron Bull, mercenary captain for the Inquisition, my ally, _my friend._ Who do we bow to?”

Traitor. Deserter. Betrayer. _Savage._

_“Who do you bow to?”_

He saw the Chargers coming up over the hill, voices loud, hearts still beating. Saw Krem leading from the front. Watched him meet his eyeline and raise a triumphant fist in the air, because they were still alive. They were all still _alive_.

_His men. His people._

“No one,” he said, and this time felt the low rumble of a roar building deep in his chest.

The Iron Bull bowed to no one.

Not to the Qun. Not to some fucking _alliance_.

Lavellan’s next question came as a shout, a clear and ringing demand: _“And what do we do?”_

“ _Chargers,_ ” he bellowed, “tell her what we do!”

He was answered by a raucous chorus of shouts; a victorious cry that split the air.

His men. His people.

 

_“We fight!”_

_“We fight!”_

_“We fight!”’_

 


	5. Cole.

Cole didn’t understand.

He’d been in this world for so long—had _lived,_ like a _person,_ like something real, like the boy he spent so long imitating—but this was different. Everything now was different. It was wrong, or…not, maybe, but it _hurt_. Everything _hurt._ He didn’t remember everything hurting like this.

He curled in on himself in the corner of the top floor of the tavern; his corner, _his space_. Things weren’t supposed to hurt here. They hadn’t hurt before.

But that was before he was human. Before the world grew solid and sharp around him, before the flow of people’s thoughts grew blurry and muffled. This was supposed to be his place but suddenly he couldn’t focus past the realization that he was tethered here, solid, _stuck_. He was supposed to slip and drift but now everything was heavy, _hurting,_ and he felt like he was dragging himself through muddy water.

Suddenly he was too aware of the weight of his shirt on his skin, of the scratch of fabric, the constricting tightness over his shoulders, his arms, his legs. Suddenly he felt the brush of hair against his forehead like a hundred prickling little fingers, more touches, more hurt. He scratched at his face and his nails scraped like knives. He couldn’t stop thinking about the way his bones pressed into the floor; the weight of his body crushing him down like an anchor tied around him, _in_ him. No shift of his body felt comfortable, no position satisfying. Nothing he did made the feelings _stop_.

Everything was heavy and tight and _hurting_ , and Cole didn’t understand how to help.

Lavellan came to find him. She was always good at finding him. She ascended the stairs with soft steps and eyes that looked too worried. “Hey,” she greeted. “How you feeling?”

That was the problem, though. Cole couldn’t stop _feeling_.

“I don’t like this.” His hair still brushed against him; bones still sinking him downward. “I don’t think I’m supposed to be human.”

Lilith didn’t say anything. Not yet. She nodded, and took a slow seat near enough to him that he nearly felt the brush of her shoulder against his. He was glad that he couldn’t. He wished he didn’t feel anything at all.

“I can’t do it,” he said, and tears stung like pinpricks on his lashes. “I don’t know how to be human. I can’t. It hurts.”

“Sometimes being human hurts,” she told him. “But hurt isn’t always bad, and it won’t be forever. You can do it. I know you can.”

“I _can’t,_ ” he whined, but it only made his throat hurt and his face feel hot. “You don’t know. I can’t.”

“Of course you can,” she insisted. “You’re still Cole, aren’t you? I know exactly what you can do.”

“You _don’t_.” He hugged his arms around himself, skin still hot, still scratching. He wished he could disappear beneath his hat, just curl up and _disappear,_ but he couldn’t do that, either. Humans couldn’t do that. “You _don’t,_ and I _can’t_.”

“You can,” she maintained. “Because who’s tougher than us?”

“It isn’t like that, though. I- I don’t…I don’t _know,_ I _can’t_.”

“Come on, you know this. You remember, don’t you?” She touched a hand to his shoulder, but it didn’t hurt like the shirt did. It felt soft, and firm, and…real. A pressure that felt welcome. “Who’s tougher than us, Cole?”

“But they’re just words,” he insisted. He twisted the fabric of his shirt tighter, tighter, tighter. “Saying them doesn’t make them true. They’re just _words._ ”

“Humor me,” she said. “Try it.”

But he couldn’t. It wouldn’t change anything. “I don’t understand,” he pleaded. “I am not tougher. The words aren’t true.”

“Call it a lesson on being human,” she offered. She gave his shoulder a comforting squeeze, her smile soft, sweet, sincere. He’d heard the words so often in cries and shouts but had never heard her use this voice. A soft, encouraging inquiry.

“Who’s tougher than us, huh?”

“But this isn’t me,” he said. “I was never this. I don’t think I was supposed to be this. I’m not the real Cole; I can’t be _real._ ”

“Cole. Hey.” He hadn’t realized he’d been digging his nails into his arms until she gently pried them loose. “Who’s tougher than us?”

He let the words slip loose like testing open water. “No one.”

“Who’s better than us?”

He felt the beat of his heart—heavy, human, _here_ —and felt a jolt like falling into cold water. “No one,” he tried. “…no one is better.”

“And who do we bow to?”

“No, but…it isn’t _true_. They’re just words. They aren’t true.”

“They don’t have to be true yet,” she said. “You say them until they are.”

He felt the rhythm of his heart like the reverberation of drums in his ears. “I don’t know if I’ll make a very good person.”

“You’ve always been a person,” she assured, and the easy tilt of her smile made it sound so true. “You just weren’t human. But you’ll still be good.” She gave a meaningful nudge to his shoulder. A motion that felt like friends. Familiar. _Real._ “Because who’s better than us?”

“No one is,” he said, and it wasn’t true but maybe it would be. It could be.

“And who will be bow to?” she asked. “Men? Demons? Despair? Who commands what we can do, Cole?”

“No one,” he said. “No one does.” There was a curious tightness in his chest; a heavy, foreign thing. “Because we fight. We can fight.”

“Because we’re _people_. And people hurt. Sometimes we hurt a lot, and it feels like we can’t do anything else. But that’s what makes us so great, you know? We _feel._ ” The weight of her hand felt like another tether, not to the floor this time, but to _her_. “And feeling is how we keep fighting, even when you think you can’t.”

“But what if I feel too much? What if I _can’t_ fight?”

“Of course you can,” she said. The bright undertone of a laugh made the words feel soft. “That’s what we do, isn’t it? Because who’s tougher than us?”

The world was still sharp and muddy and too heavy, but Cole was beginning to feel the hurt less. Could feel _past_ it. “No one,” he said. “We’re people. And no one is tougher than us.”

 


End file.
